George VI, King of Great Britain

Library of Congress

George VI was king of Great Britain from 1937 until his death in 1952. His daughter, Elizabeth, succeeded him as monarch.

George became king after his older brother, Edward VIII, abdicated the throne to marry "the woman I love,'' Wallis Simpson, a divorced American. The leaders of the British government and the Church of England had told Edward that he had to choose between his throne and Mrs. Simpson.

The central event of George's reign was World War II, in which he helped rally the citizenry with a series of dramatic radio addresses.

Behind those speeches was a struggle of different kind, George's lifelong effort to overcame a severe stammer. "The King's Speech,'' released in 2010, shows George, then Prince Albert, (played by Colin Firth), working with an uncredentialled, unorthodox speech therapist from Australia named Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush). The movie tells the story of the unlikely friendship between the two men and describes how Mr. Logue helped the king find his voice and his confidence.

George was the last British monarch to be crowned with the title of King Emperor. As the obituary in The New York Times noted: "the title of Emperor went with the granting of independence to India. His reign marked the end of an era of British power."

Selected Articles About George VI, King of Great Britain

LONDON, Feb. 6 -- In the early hours of this morning George VI died peacefully in his sleep at the royal estate at Sandringham. As night fell upon this mourning capital of a still great family of nations, his elder daughter was proclaimed Queen of this realm and its dependencies, head of the British Commonwealth and the Defender of the Faith, with the title of Elizabeth II.

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